PebraaiT 11, 1875. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOKTIGULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



133 



^ect suggests the possibility of the narrow cells of worker-comb 

 being the cause of the difference of sex ; that these narrow cells 

 compress the abdomens of queens in the act of laying, and 

 thus press the contents of the spermatheca against the eggs ; 

 whereas the drone cells, being large, produce no pressure. The 

 ■writer in question does not know that many eggs female in 

 character are laid in almost all hives containing swarms on the 

 fonndations of cells before their sides are erected at all. In 

 snch cases there can be no pressure whatever on the abdomens 

 of queens in laying eggs, and yet the eggs laid on these founda- 

 tions batch into workers. 



Much has been written about queens laying female eggs for 

 months, and then commencing to lay nothing bat male eggs. 

 If the writers had possessed accurate knowledge of the produc- 

 ing cause of the difference of male and female eggs they would 

 not have written as they have done. We have never in our ex- 

 perience found a queen suspend the laying of eggs in worker 

 cells for days in order to lay eggs in drone cells. We have no 

 doubt at all that both kinds are laid by one queen on the same 

 day. Drones are twenty-four days in their cells, and workers 

 twenty-one days. It a strong hive be bereft of its queen the 

 workers are being hatched and born every day for three weeks, 

 and all the drones are not hatched till the twenty-fourth day. 



The function of drones is to pair with queens and thus per- 

 petuate the race of bees. There is produced in the swarming 

 Beason a marvellous superabundance of drones in almost every 

 hive. Bat if the importance of the fertilisation of queens be 

 considered, and the limits of time in which it should take place 

 (within ten or twelve days after queens are born), an abundant 

 male population is perhaps a wise provision in an uncertain 

 climate like that of Great ISritain. If the weather be unfavour- 

 able during the early days of queens, many of them fail to be 

 mated by drones and are worthless. But queens timely fertilised 

 commence to lay in a few days afterwards, and in about ten days 

 after egg-laying has begun by fertile young queens the bees 

 commence to worry and kill the drones. The poor unfortunate 

 creatures are driven from the provision cells by their merciless 

 masters, whose deadly intentions become more manifest every 

 day, till a scene of carnage takes place painful to witness. 



Recently drone traps have been introduced to a=^siat the bees 

 in ridding hives of their condemned drones. We have one 

 which does the work of trapping very weU, but we seldom use 

 it, for it hinders and confuses the bees at work during the best 

 part of the day for honey-gathering; and then there follows 

 the trouble of kilUng the drones that have been trapped. We 

 try to select stocks in autumn that have but little drone comb 

 in them, and when any that are selected have drone combs near 

 their centres these are cut out, and worker combs are fitted in 

 their places. In this way hives may be kept from having too 

 many drones. — A. Pettigrew. 



SWARMS AND BAR-FRAME HIVES. 



Mk. Pettigrew cannot have read what he calls " the litera- 

 ture of the bar-frame school " with much attention if he cannot 

 remember any results of swarms. I can find abundant results 

 chronicled. Mr. Pettigrew implies that swarms spend their 

 first year in making combs, was a statement made by Mr. 

 Cheshire. I have read all Mr. Cheshire's articles again, and 

 they contain no such expression, but I find one which says, 

 speaking of a swarm which came off AprU 28th, 1872, " On July 

 15th in — i.e., eleven weeks, the swarm had not only filled the 

 hive but nad also thoroughly filled and sealed a large super with 

 beautifal comb. It was on that day removed and found to 

 weigh 44 lbs. nett. A smaller super of glass was now put upon 

 the hive, and on August 15th removed, containing 10 lbs. nett, 

 making 54 lbs. nett from a swarm which was left with a hive so 

 full of store that stimulative feeding in 1873 was prevented, as 

 it would have crippled breeding." This hive the next year gave 

 four swarms, all of which wintered well, and one filled a super. 

 Now if Mr. Pettigrew turns to Class 13 of the British Bee-keepers' 

 Association's Crystal Palace Catalogue (in case he has not a copy 

 I now post him one), he will see No. 114, 38 lbs., one of two 

 supers same size from a swarm of Ligurians, 1874; No. 115, 

 44 lbs. from a swarm of black bees, 1874 ; No. 119, 43 lbs. from 

 a swarm of 1874. And these were not the only ones. Following 

 Mr. Pettigrew's way of calculating, the weight of the hive con- 

 tents must be added, which will augment the gross weight to 

 more than the 100 lbs. desired. A filled super from a bar-frame 

 hive is not at all uncommon, even although we have no heather 

 to send them to, which will make a material addition. 



Mr. Pettigrew asks for the result of my harvest. I answer 

 that through the force of circumstances I was obliged to discon- 

 tinue bee-keeping for a year or two, and began last season with 

 two stocks only, from which I had no surplus ; but then they 

 were in skeps, from which I am thankful to say they were as 

 soon as possible safely transferred to Woodburys, aiterwards 

 ligurianised, and then made use of for queen-breeding and ex- 

 perimental purposes, so that they had no fair chance, and there- 

 fore the skeps are not wholly to blame. 



The columns of the back volumes of the .Journal of Horticul- 

 ture will give other instances of supers from swarms in bar- 

 frame hives, if Mr. Pettigrew wishes for further evidence. With 

 regard to the slinger, if Mr. Bagshaw had fairly tried its power 

 in extracting heather honey and found it fail, what was the use 

 of Mr. Pettigrew inviting bee-keepers to see him try the same 

 experiment which he knew would not succeed ? Referring to 

 your correspondent's extract from Mr. Cheshire's article as to 

 the colour and value of extracted honey, the quotation should 

 go a little further and add, "Bat notwithstanding these slight 

 drawbacks, so great is the economy to the bees and so, too, oar- 

 selves, in preserving the combs, that the balance in favour of 

 slinging is very large indeed. As much as 603 lbs. have been 

 taken in one year from a single stock in America." Now it is 

 obvious that if the honey is slung from sealed cells only (of 

 course with the seal shaved off), it must be identically the saoie 

 as if run out uncontaminated by brood ; but if unsealed honey is 

 extracted a certain amount of evaporation (very little) will take 

 place, but there is no loss of quality, and no colour will be im- 

 parted to it that it would not have had if the other process had 

 been followed. 



The relative -value of extracted and run honey has not yet 

 been determined in England, as we have used the extractor but 

 little at present. At the Paris Exhibition last year extracted 

 honey was quoted 1 franc per half kilo, and run honey 90 cen- 

 times ; so, then, our neighbours, who are generally allowed to have 

 the organ of taste pretty well developed, prefer the extracted. In 

 America the case is reversed, and their method of procedure will 

 perhaps explain this, as also why the honey would sometimes be 

 dark-coloured. Across the Atlantic the following practice ia 

 commonly pursued : — Two hives containing strong stocks are 

 selected. From No. 1 the whole of the bees with their queen are 

 driven, making what we may call a strong swarm. The crown 

 board is removed from No. 2, an adapter substituted, and No. 1 

 minus its fioorboard is placed full of combs and brood in all 

 stages on it, the bees in which swarm up, and hatch-out in due 

 time all the brood. By the time this is done, the queen of No. 2 

 having been breeding all the time, the hive contains an immense 

 population, who then, used to the super as they have become, 

 immediately work their hardest to store the empty combs with 

 honey, and as fast as they do so, without waiting for sealing, the 

 bee-master empties them with his extractor, replacing again to 

 be filled. It wiU thus he perceived that from such a hive all 

 the honey is obtained from combs which have been well used, 

 and perhaps thereby have gained the undesirable dark tint. — 

 John Hunteb, Eaton Rise, Ealing. 



DEPRESSION OF HIVE FRAMES. 



Mr. Pettigrew, in the Journal of November 5th, pointed to 

 the removal of the bottom rail in frames for bar hives as an im- 

 provement. I replied, stating tha" I regarded the bottom rail 

 as essential, and gave the reasons for my opinion, adding, as 

 matters of experience, that the bar occasionally sank beneath 

 the weight of comb and bees it had to support ; that in the 

 absence of the bottom rail the sides would be splayed against 

 the hive wall and there attached ; and that, farther, the combs 

 are sometimes built down to and fastened to the fioorboard. 

 December 17th, " Pecchione " disputes the facts adduced, and 

 asks as follows :— " Will Mr. Cheshire tell us if the contingency 

 he predicts with regard to the so-called bar-frame without the 

 bottom rail is grounded on any actual fact, or is it a mere idea 

 of his own ?" I answer (December 31st), that " I have not a few 

 instances in which the sinking is at least double of that upon 

 which I based my calculations," and explain that I cannot then 

 give the exact measurements, because the low temperature pre- 

 cluded an examination. I have since, however, ascertained them 

 exactly, and find the greatest sinking 0.32 of an inch — rather 

 more than three times the amount suggested. I can add, more- 

 over, that the frames in which these depressions had occurred 

 were seen by Mr. Abbott during 1873, when he asked whether 

 the frames were those he supplied with the hives, to which he 

 received a reply in the affirmative. 



" Pecchione " in his last thanks me for an offer that was 

 never made, of assistance in trigonometrical calculations, and 

 then re-asserts "That it is impossible for bees to depress the 

 bars as stated. A bar might warp from fault in the wood, but 

 not from weight of the bees," &c. ; his reason being (vide his 

 letter), that as the weight is extended along the bar it must 

 necessarily give a certain amount of strength. 



Does "Pecchione " not know that if a plank be supported at 

 each end it will sag by the weight of the wood it contains, and 

 which is evenly distributed through its length? To talk of 

 extension of the bees giving a certain amount of strength, is 

 not to talk with reison but against it. If "Pecchione" be 

 right, a straw supported at its ends wiU bear a swarm extended 

 along it. It is next suggested that the case I instanced of beea 

 attaching their comb to the floorboard might have arisen from 

 careless manipulation. I can only say, that of those hundreds 

 who saw me manipulating at the Palace Show, I hope but few 



